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“And what if I'm not successful?”

A dark cloud came over the famous author's face. “There will be shouting and a pursuit! I will hear it and race up the trail and help the authorities capture you! You will find Mermoz like a lion to deal with in this situation.”

I believed him.

“Once we have you in custody, I shall explain that you sneaked into my room while I was asleep, tied me down, drugged me and stole my precious Chauvet clothing. You chose to disguise yourself as the Great Mermoz!”

“Will they believe that?”

“When I tell it, they shall! And you, sir, are a maniac! That is the role you will be cast into if they catch you. A crazy American intent upon getting into the sacred French cave! Just as others have tried to damage our
Mona Lisa
in the Louvre! And, believe me, I will leave clear evidence of what you have done.”

“But why would you do that? You would betray me?”

“Because that is the European ending to the story, as I told you. The tragedy of you.” Then his face became serious. “But also because if it were known that I helped you get into la Grotte Chauvet, my reputation would be in tatters. I cannot have that.”

“Then why are you doing this? Why take this risk?”

“Ah, that is exactly why. The risk! The excitement! The story! One must have adventure in every aspect, every moment, of life. If you can accomplish this, I will live the rest of my life knowing that I put
you
into the sacred cave! It will be our delicious secret. Ah!
C'est formidable
! If you are not successful, it will all be extremely exciting too. I cannot lose!”

But
I
could.

Up we continued toward the cave. Had I made a deal with the devil? Mermoz might be a genius, but he was a nutbar too.

We stopped briefly to see the man sitting in the small open cave, with the equipment for the scientists. He gave us all antiseptic cave shoes, panel lights and battery belts. I remembered Mermoz looking down at my feet in the café yesterday, placing one of his beside mine and seeing that they were exactly the same size. He had thought of everything.

We moved out. As we neared the Chauvet Cave, my heart raced. Soon the steel door came into view. It seemed even more like a portal to a great imaginary world now. Once the scientists in front of me were within a few steps of it, they stopped. The security guy made his way past all of us. When he slipped by me, he glanced at my face. It seemed to me that he did a slight double take. But he walked on. He punched the numbers into the keypad at lightning speed again and then moved to the door. I tried not to look up at the surveillance camera. He turned the lock and pushed the entrance open. Imagine, I thought, if I can do this, get in and out without anyone knowing! I was fourth in the line and couldn't see clearly past the others. All I could make out inside was absolute darkness. The first scientist entered, sat down and put on his clean shoes and then appeared to immediately descend. I could hear his boots banging on what sounded like a metal staircase. Then the second scientist made his way in and then the third.

Then it was my turn.

I took a deep breath.

I approached the opening. I couldn't see much even here, just the flashing helmet lights of the other scientists in the darkness in front of me. I sat down and put on my cave shoes. I'd worn my runners today, just in case I might have to move at top speed at some point. I threw them behind me on the path. Then I pushed myself up, felt my feet touch a metal step and lowered my head so my light illuminated my way in the darkness. I descended four or five steps, reached a short flat stretch, then turned and descended more stairs before the path flattened out again. I was on the metal walkway inside the Chauvet Cave, advancing into it! I couldn't believe it. I began to sweat as adrenaline surged through me.

The cavern was huge, its ceiling high above my head. I had a sense of being in another time and space, another world. The metal walkway, which had rails designed to keep even these renowned scientists away from the floor and the walls and whatever was on them, wound around in front of me, leading deeper into the cave. It was beyond eerie. The blackness was only illuminated in the circles of light made by our headlamps and the squares thrown by the panel lights we carried, showing amazing rock formations on the cave's walls, stalagmites sticking up from the floor and stalactites looking like the big icicles that appear in Buffalo in the winter. But these strange shapes were made by the centuries-old drippings of mineral solutions instead of ice.

There was little sound in the cavity, just the clang of our shoes on the metal walkway. The scientists, many of whom had been in here before, still seemed awed by their surroundings. No one said a word. It was like being in a church, the greatest, spookiest cathedral in the world.

The whole thing was almost too much for me. I was inside a dream. Everything was brown and white and gray, and looked like nothing I had ever seen or even imagined. I doubted that the surface of Mars could be more exotic. My heart kept pumping hard. I had a weird thought: if I could bring Leon here someday, would it cure him?

This cave had been sealed for over 20,000 years and some of the drawings were more than 100 centuries older than that! That meant they existed in the days of Neanderthals, days when (as this cave proved) rhinoceroses, wild horses and lions roamed in southern France. I was back in history and yet in no age at all, suspended in time. I could hardly wait to see the drawings, to feast my eyes (as
no
kid had in 32,000 years!) on the first known art made by human beings. I was ready to discover the meaning of life. It really felt like that was about to happen.

I knew we would see some cave art soon, and that wasn't just a sixth sense. I had studied the Chauvet on the French Ministry of Culture's website on my cell back at the hotel. They'd posted an interior map. I was certain we were just steps away from entering the part of the cavity called the Brunel Chamber. There would be drawings there. My flesh began to tingle. The passage narrowed and grew shorter. We were going to have to get low to get through here. But what a reward on the other side! It felt like we were burrowing into the center of the earth.

Then I saw it.

Up ahead, through the opening, I could just make out a sort of cascade of stalagmites, and in it there appeared to be the outline of a mammoth. A mammoth! A creature from another time! I realized that I still had Mermoz's glasses on. So I took them off to see better.

That was a mistake, the biggest of my life.

Suddenly, with the dark lenses removed, the whole cave brightened and it felt like God was descending into our midst and directing my gaze toward the art. I had a sense of being in a truly magical place.

Then I dropped the glasses.

They clanked loudly on the metal walkway.

The scientist in front of me was a young woman, the one Mermoz had been teasing two days ago. The sound of the glasses hitting the metal startled her, and she turned and looked directly at me. As I rose from retrieving my shades, I glanced back at her. She gasped.

“You're not him!” she exclaimed.

The security guard was three people behind me, bringing up the rear. There was no doubt that he had heard what she said. Suddenly, I was in deep trouble. I had just two options. The first was to scurry deeper into the passage and take my chances hiding from him in the recesses of the Chauvet. I dropped that possibility instantly. I would either be lost forever or he would quickly find me. So I seized my only remaining possibility.
Run! Run back to the entrance and
out of the cave!
Turn and rush past the scientists behind me and by the security guy, before they could even think about laying hold of me, then make for the door!

But the woman grabbed me, gripping my battery belt. I tore it off in one motion and dropped my panel light to the walkway. I pivoted and got past the three men behind me in a flash. Caught by surprise, as I'd hoped, they merely gaped in astonishment. I was sure that nothing remotely like this had ever happened in the Chauvet Cave.

But the guard was a good one. He was ready for me. He reached out to seize me. I ducked. His swipe knocked the helmet from my head. It sailed off and fell with a crash into the precious mineralized floor of the cave, a floor mostly untouched by humanity (and certainly by plastic hard hats) in 32,000 years! I felt terrible about that. But at this very moment it was a good thing for me. It caused the guard to stare, wide-eyed, at the helmet, stunned for a moment. It was as if he had been in charge of an historic, priceless Ming vase and I had just smashed it to smithereens.

His pause allowed me to pass him. But now I had no hat and no light. Attempting to recall exactly how the walkway went, how many steps there were upward and where they were, I rushed along the metal surface back toward the steel door, blind, praying that somehow,
somehow
, I could get to it and open it. I was imagining how many years I would get in a French jail for this. I hadn't wanted to hurt anything or anyone! I had just wanted to see the paintings! In an instant, the guard was after me.

Then I fell.

“
Voilà!
” shouted my pursuer, reaching out for me. But I kicked backward and hit him somewhere—I don't know where; it felt like his shoulder. He cried out and fell on the walkway. I heard his helmet fall off, strike the walkway and crash onto the cave floor too!

Up the first flight of steps I went in the pitch black; then I turned and raced up the next flight, thinking hard about where the stairs were. They were steep, but I timed them correctly. I took two or three strides at the landing and smashed into the door. It almost knocked me cold.

It was locked, sealed as tightly as a tomb.

Behind me, the guard was pounding up the stairs, his way lit by the beam from a scientist's helmet behind him. He was yelling at me.

“
Arrêtez! Arrêtez!
”

But then, a little woozy, I heard a faint sound outside.

There was someone on the other side of the door. I could hear him, calling a name that sounded like the security guard's. Then I heard the
ping-ping-ping-
ping-ping
of the numbers being punched on the key pad out there.

Suddenly the door opened.

The man who had given us our shoes must have heard me crash into the door. An alarming sound, no doubt, and likely one he had never heard before. Perhaps he had even heard the shouting inside. He must have thought something had gone terribly wrong and that someone needed help. He was right.

I rushed past him into the blinding light, emerging from a lost world back into reality, reached down and grabbed my runners, stuffed them into my big pockets, and began racing along the pathway toward the scientists' buildings, the Pont d'Arc and freedom! Tree branches whipped against my sleeves and my face. I had long legs, hockey and football legs, and I could run like the devil if I needed to. I needed to now, big-time.

The man who opened the door had been so stunned by my appearance that he hadn't moved at first. But when the security guard came out of the cave shouting in French, both were immediately on my tail.

I had a good head start. I wondered if it was enough. I sped downward with everything I had, twisting and turning, thinking that the two men behind me were at least in their forties and that I should be able to outrun them. I had to beat them soundly. I couldn't just slightly outpace them: I had to get far ahead, to somewhere,
anywhere
, where I could get into a car and escape, without them seeing the vehicle or its license plate. How I was going to commandeer a vehicle was another question. I ran so fast that in minutes I could see the first parking lot in the distance, beyond the vineyard.

That was when I thought of Mermoz and his getaway car.
Yes! He
would be down there, waiting for me. Surely, he would help me; surely, he wouldn't be the villain he said he could be.

But then I saw him.

He had heard the shouting and was coming up the path toward me. He had a look of anger in his eyes. He was yelling something. I couldn't tell what it was. Then it became clear. And when it did, I realized that he wasn't joking about the part of his plan that had scared me so much. He was naked except for his boxer shorts, a new wig and a goatee.

“Scoundrel!” he cried. “Scoundrel!”

For an instant, I hoped he was kidding. But his hands were stretched out toward me and the anger wasn't leaving his eyes.

Mermoz was coming at me, blocking the pathway. He was going to play this out exactly as he said. The great Mermoz was going to seize me and send me to a French jail! My chance to fulfill my grandfather's dreams, my chance to exonerate him, to impress Vanessa Lincoln, to change my life, was gone.

SIXTEEN

THE MEANING OF LIFE

Mermoz was a strong man and very sweaty and, of course, almost naked. I decided to give him a little “shake 'n' bake,” which is what our number-one running back on the McKinley High Minutemen calls a move he makes on linebackers when he gets them one-on-one in open field. I gave Mermoz a little feint with my head, shoulders and hips, then spun around, putting my back to him, in order to slip by on the path. But he seemed to be blessed with some athletic ability too, because he didn't go for the move, at least not for all of it, and actually got his hands on me as I tried to slide past him. Maybe he played soccer or rugby or something. His sweaty chest was instantly glued to my back, his arms wrapped around my ribcage.